Preface:

Being a performing musician is harder than it looks. Hell, it's practically part of the job to make it look easy. Almost everything I've written here is stuff that either I wish someone told me before my first gig, or they did, and I wish I'd listened. As with all things, your mileage may vary.

Ok, so you're a guitarist for a band. Your band has scored a gig, and you want to make it the best gig you can. You want to be prepared for every eventuality. You want to kick Murphy in the teeth. You want to be an elite guerilla guitar soldier, ready to... Ok, so maybe that's a little excessive, but you don't want your stunning performance ruined by something as pathetic as a string breakage or a fried vacuum tube. Some of this stuff will be electric guitar specific, so if you're an acoustic player, just ignore it. Plenty of it should still apply though.

Alright then soldier, here's what you'll need to be a guitar NINJA. I don't promise you'll be able to play any good with all this stuff, but if you can play your stuff properly, this should cover most shots that Murphy should throw at you. If you follow all my advice and something still goes wrong, pray to St Reg (patron saint of club musicians) and then just improvise.

Equipment:

This stuff is your vital toolkit for doing a gig. If you can see that it doesn't apply to you, ignore it. If you're not sure, bring it anyway. If budget restrictions prohibit the extra expenditure to buy the extra equipment, then improvise.

• A guitar. Preferably two. No, strike that, preferably eight...

  You can never have too many guitars on hand, because one day you'll have one guitar too few, and you WILL break a string. My rule of thumb is to always have at least two guitars in standard tuning and one guitar for each different tuning I'll be using during the course of the set. If this is cost prohibitive, either try to use less tunings per set, or get good at restringing and retuning your guitar REALLY FAST. A string breakage is NOT a valid reason to stop a song, and it's sure as hell no good reason to stop a set. If possible, kludge your way through to the end of the song with the broken string, and swap guitars then. This is usually manageable with rock music, but is often impossible with jazz and classical stuff. This is also the reason why if you don't use a tremolo/vibrato/whammy bar in normal playing, you're better off with a guitar that just doesn't have one. If a guitar with a tremolo (especially fancy floating ones) will tend to go HIDEOUSLY out of tune if they break a single string. Hardtail guitars (especially Fender Telecasters) will usually maintain tuning pretty well on the remaining strings until at least the end of a song. If you've got some half-competent friends on hand, get one of them to put a new string on during the next song, and you should be back on track with your 'main ax' one song later.

  It's also advisable to bring a stand for every guitar you bring with you. Some companies (including Fender) make guitar stands that can hold 5-6 guitars at once, and will fold into what looks just like a normal guitar case. These things are the bee's knees.

  Speaking of guitar cases, I recommend investing in a decent hard case for your instrument. A gig bag may seem just fine in the back of your car, and it'll protect your instrument from all sorts of nasty shocks and bumps, but the day someone's 4x12 speaker cabinet falls on it, you're gonna regret it.

  Guitar cases are like motorcycle helmets, and to use Bell's advertising slogan: If you've got a $100 head, buy a $100 helmet. A four grand PRS in a thin nylon gig bag is a joke.




• An amp, and if it's not a combo, a speaker cabinet to go with it. Choose your amp sensibly for the type of gig you're playing. A small club does not require your 6' Marshall stack, and a 10 W practice amp will not fill a stadium. Use your head. See also: Choosing an amp: A guitarist's guide.



• Cables. This means enough 1/4" jack guitar cables to meet your requirements, plus at least one extra. I recommend shelling out a LITTLE more to get some good cloth wrapped cables.

  DiMarzio make good cables, which come with a good warranty, and are incredibly easy to wind up properly.

  Don't bother with super-elitist brands like 'Monster Cable' unless you're Eric Johnson, in which case you've probably already decided that your amp sounds better when it's just returned from spending three months wrapped in a bullock hide behind a frozen waterfall in Tibet, and don't want to listen to me anyway.

  If your amp/effects setup requires MIDI cables, or other hard to find cables, you DEFINITELY need a spare. My Fender Cyber-Deluxe had a footswitch that connected to the amp with a MIDI cable, and the night my cable started flaking out was a night my fellow band members beat eight kinds of shit out of me with my footswitch.
  That's why I'm so pretty... Since then I replaced it with a Marshall JCM900 50w half-stack, and it's pretty much perfect. Only one button on the footswitch, and it's interchangeable with any other channel switch.




• Effects pedals, stomp boxes, whatever you call them. If you're in a rock band and use a distortion pedal, it's usually a good idea to have a spare, but you should only need one of each of your others. Be sure to bring enough power supplies if you use them, and a few spare batteries.



• Picks, plectra, whatever you call them. If you don't use 'em, ignore this, but if you do, choose 'em well and bring lots. You may also find that a pick that's fine for playing at home is not suitable for a gig.

  The best way to tell how a pick will perform under gig conditions is to dip your fingers in water, pick up your pick, and play. HARD. If your pick slips out of your fingers, you need a bigger, grippier pick, or you need to improve your technique. Find out what sort of picks other members of your band use, and get some of them too.




• Slides and capos. If you use 'em, bring 'em. If you use glass or ceramic slides, bring a spare, because they CAN shatter, and don't buy cheap plastic capos either. A good metal capo is not much more expensive than a cheapie one, will last you forever, will maintain its 'spring' for longer, and will provide more even tension across the strings. If you can get your mitts on one, I'd recommend the Shubb capo, which come in a few different varieties for different types of guitar. In my experience they cause less tuning problems, are more adjustable, and are easier to put on/remove than any other capo. Your mileage may vary.



• Spare strings. I cannot emphasise this enough. Ever. You're proportionally more likely to break your D, B, and high E strings (depending on what style you play), so bring more of these. Even if you never use them yourself, the day will come that someone else needs them, and they'll love you forever for saving them.



• Spare vacuum tubes and fuses. Obviously if you have a solid state amp, these aren't necessary, but at the VERY least you should carry a spare preamp tube, and ideally you'd have an entire set on hand, plus a few spares in case of duds.

  Make sure the spare fuses you've got will actually work in your amp. It may sound silly but I've seen people go to swap a fuse into their amp, and find that the spare fuses they've been carrying around with them don't work in their amp anyway.




• Basic tool kit. This would include side-cutters, phillips and flat-head screwdrivers of various sizes, a sharp knife, gaffer tape, hex-wrenches (allen keys) of various sizes, a soldering iron, some solder, some insulated wire, a cigarette lighter, and some heat-shrink insulation.

  If you don't know how to solder, learn. It's not hard, and it's useful in repairing all sorts of electronic gizmos.




• A tuner. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a band tune by 'ear' and then sound like crap, I'd never have to play in another crappy dive again. An electronic tuner is a wonderous thing, is easy to use, and will save you from all sorts of tuning hassles.

  In my opinion, the best kind are the 'pedal' type, that look just like a regular stomp box, so you can use them to tune in between songs without bending over and looking like a goon. If you DO get one of this kind, make sure it uses a 'true bypass' switch so that when it's not turned on it's not changing your guitar sound.

  My amp has a built in tuner, and I love it like a child. If you're going to play outdoor gigs during the day, get one with a backlit LCD screen rather than one that uses LED's. LED's can be impossible to see in daylight, but without some sort of backlighting on the LCD you won't be able to read it in a darkened club.




• A towel. Sounds crazy but if you play standing up under lights, you're gonna sweat like a hog in a sauna. Those lights always seem closer and hotter once you're playing, and playing guitar can be surprisingly aerobic exercise, even if you're NOT jumping around like a punk-rock hero.



• A clean shirt and some deodorant. Once you finish playing, if you've been sweating a lot, you're gonna walk outside and realise you smell like a nasty mix of cigarettes, beer, sweat, and guitar polish. You'll also be hot and wet.

  You will want to crawl out of your own skin and find someplace cool and dry to lurk until you don't feel soggy any more. Pulling off your sweaty shirt, using it to towel off your buff rock-god torso, and putting on a fresh one can be a wonderful beautiful thing. Your S.O. will thank you.




• Other sundries. This would include obvious things like a cell-phone, a list of the other band members' phone numbers, the club manager's phone number, enough money to get a cab home if needs be, a snack, and something to drink.



• Acoustic players note: If you use a D.I. box, bring a spare. If you use a feedback buster, remember to bring it.

All the smaller items from this lot should fit in a single bag. There are bags made specifically for guitarists, with special padded compartments for all the assorted crap you'll need, but most are overpriced. Bigger camera bags are more or less the same thing, only with a (usually) lower price tag. If the bag has the word 'Lowe' written somewhere on it, get ready to take out a second mortgage, cos it'll cost you.

Setting up your gear:

Where you put your amp matters. No really, it does. If you don't have a PA system backing you up, you need to position it so the audience can hear it but won't ONLY hear it (and not the other members of the band).

If you have a PA system helping you with getting your sound to the audience, then you'll also have a sound guy harping at you to keep stage volumes down so he can work his magic. This is much easier if you point the amp at your head. Some amps (Fender Twins etc.) come with fold back legs that allow you to tip the amp back so it can point straight at your head even when it's on the floor. Leaning your amp against a wall, a spare foldback wedge, or even putting it up on a milk crate or a chair will all help to make sure as much of the sound as possible gets to your ears without affecting others too much.

If you're playing mostly rhythm stuff, make sure the bass player and drummer can hear you too. Until you can afford in-ear monitors, this will always matter. I recommend actually having the speakers pointing perpendicular to the way you'll be facing. This way the audience will get your sound from the PA, not from your amp, and you'll get the sound from your amp pointing straight at your ears if you're facing the front of the stage. This will encourage you to face the audience more, which is 'A Good Thing'.

Your effects placement matters. Make sure your effects pedals are spaced widely enough that you can step on them without worrying about hitting the wrong one, but close enough together so you can reach them all from your 'main stage position'. If you use an expression pedal (this includes wah-wah and volume pedals) and sing at the same time, make sure you can reach the mic comfortably with your foot on the pedal. If you don't, you'll look like a spazz and feel uncomfortable. It's that simple. Speaking of looking like a spazz...

Moving around on stage:

Obviously this is more important to a rock guitarist than a jazz guitarist, but realistically speaking, noone likes a shoe-gazer.

There's a reason the stage is there.
It's to elevate you.
So they can see you.
They WANT to see you.
More importantly, they want to see you doing something WORTH SEEING.

How much and what you do on stage is linked surprisingly closely to the type of music you're playing, so I'll try not to get into it too much, but suffice to say, nobody likes a shoe-gazer. If you didn't want to move around at all you should've taken up bass, drums, or piano.
Or tuba.
So basically try to look like you're actually enjoying the music. If you look like you're enjoying it, your audience won't find it so strange a concept to enjoy it themselves. Something I learned in school productions has held me in good stead on stages in clubs and bars.

From the audience, every movement you make looks smaller.

This basically means that for that wiggle of your hips to look 'convincing' or for the jump to look 'serious', you're going to need to do it 'bigger'. Do it MORE. You may feel like a goon, but trust me, you look like a rock god. Speaking of which...

Booze.Having a pint before you go on can help you to relax and chill out a bit, and get into the mood, but any more than two standard drinks (about 500 mL of full strength beer) will have you playing like crap. The same goes for other chemicals. I'm not going to tell you not to take them before you play, but keep it moderate and keep it sensible. You always think it sounds better if you're trolleyed.

Lastly, a mysterious yet effective tip. Before you play, if you've got time, check the stage for broken glass, sharps, etc, and if you find none, and it's not too filthy/sticky, consider playing in bare feet. Obviously some gigs just won't be suitable for this, but I find it makes me feel much more comfortable when I'm moving around the stage if I'm not wearing any shoes. YMMV.

Clothing:

It's a crying shame, but in these modern times, clothes matter. As Frank Zappa said:

'No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style. Rock is to dress up to.'

Clothing is also tied closely into the subculture associated with the type of music you're playing, but there's a few firm (not solid) rules to stand by.

• No shorts. They only make you look like a kid. The only successful musician I can think of to wear shorts regularly on stage is Angus Young, and that was part of his whole 'schoolboy' concept, so technically it's a 'costume' anyway. There are a few pop-punk bands who get away with this, and plenty of funk and hip-hop types who can do it, but without exception the shorts they wear are very big and very baggy. Remember the bassist from Queen? Do you want to look like that? Right.



• Dress for the occasion. If you're playing a wedding, ask the organisers what they'd like you to wear. Use your head. If in doubt, bring a change of clothes.



• Be comfortable. Playing while dressed up as a giant nose may be the funniest thing in the world, but if you pass out from heat exhaustion, or can't bend over to plug a cable back in, you're going to regret it.



• Bring something warm to wear after the gig, even if you live in a warm climate.

That's about it.
If in doubt, wear comfortable blue jeans and a clean t-shirt.

A few final tips:

• Thread your guitar cable through your strap. This way if you tread on it, it won't pull out of its socket.



• Use straplocks. These ingenious devices will stop your strap from coming off your guitar. When your strap comes off your guitar, you look like a prat. If you don't care what happens to the finish of your guitar, and want to look 'real punk' use gaffer tape to affix your strap permanently to the guitar by cocooning the strap ends in gaff.



• gaffer down everything you can. If you might trip over it, gaff it. If it might come unplugged? Gaff it. If it looks like a terrorist bomb-threat? Gaff it. At the end of the gig, roll all your pulled off (and now useless) gaff up in a big ball and play soccer with it. It's fun. Trust me.



• If there's another band on after you, pack up quickly and efficiently. There'll be plenty of time to analyse your performance with your band members once your gear is back in the boot of your car.



• Have fun. If you don't, I'll kill ya.

Thank you everybody you've been a wonderful audience... Goodnight.

Please feel free to blab me with any recommended additions to this w/u.